Dirty Words Read online

  Gone were the days when Bobby and the crew had to wrangle a half-ton of quarters into Brooklyn every week. These new babies took in mostly bills. Hell, they even took credit cards nowadays. In the last year, the new machines had tripled the cash money flowing into DeMarco Amusements.

  Pete looked queasy. "We got enough shit to worry about right now, as is. Why the fuck is Henry even worrying about Angela? Christ, we got the Stella crew taking over the Meatpacking district, Chinatown's cut off, those crazy-ass Russians have all of Queens locked down now. I don't even want to talk about Koreatown. We're gonna have nothing left soon, and Henry's wasting our time with his marital problems?"

  "That's Henry's choice, Pete." The real question that none of them asked was; why the fuck did Henry DeMarco do anything anymore? Why had he taken to wandering the neighborhood in his bathrobe? With all the money coming in, why hadn't he shored up his crew with more men than the current rotation of Bobby, Pete and Gino?

  Their territory had been whittled down to Greenwich Village east of Seventh Avenue and was getting smaller every month.

  If the Stella boys decided to take the rest of their territory away suddenly rather than chip away at it?

  If they wound up in a sudden war?

  Bobby knew that the pathetic DeMarco crew would be left, well…with their dicks hanging out.

  "I don't want to sound paranoid, but…" Pete had been starting a lot of his sentences that way lately. The problem was, he didn't sound paranoid at all.

  "But what?"

  "When I went to clear out the machine down on Houston and Sullivan? I'm pretty sure I saw Chaz Stella's Caddy parked down the block."

  Bobby stayed silent.

  The two of them finished loading up the truck. Pete shuffled his feet as he unstrapped his back brace and tossed it into the cab. Bobby knew he had something on his mind when he did his little two-step, like a kid who had to pee.

  Pete clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Okay then. You doing the collections today or Gino?"

  "I am."

  "When are you going to do…it?" He wasn't asking about the collections any more.

  "Tonight."

  "Jeez." Pete looked like he might puke. Without another word, Pete clapped his hand onto Bobby's shoulder and grasped it tight.

  They'd been through a lot together, done a lot of crazy, sick (mostly illegal) tasks for Henry DeMarco—but what Bobby was being ordered to do? That was something else.

  Pete drove out the bay doors and went left on Metropolitan, heading for the bridge.

  Bobby walked around the receiving desk, where Gino waved him over. Gino looked around the area, a little red-faced. He palmed something into Bobby's hand.

  A foil wrapped condom.

  "Per il tuo cazzo."

  "Grazie."

  When he finishes, Angela is slumped on the bed, her arms and legs dangling up like a marionette waiting for the show to begin. He dresses slowly in her bathroom, the bedroom silent but for Angela's strained breaths.

  Bobby turns on the water and rubs his hands under the scalding stream. He slicks his hair back, not looking at himself in the mirror.

  When he walks back into the bedroom, he gently uncuffs one of Angela's wrists, rubs the angry dark furrows where the metal dug into her skin and puts the key in her palm.

  There's a chill in the night breeze and Bobby wishes he had a jacket. He climbs into his old Chevy and pulls onto the BQE, drives the two short exits to Henry's house.

  The lights are on in the old duplex that Henry has lived in all his life. Bobby checks his watch—almost midnight. He presses the doorbell.

  Henry opens the door in, what else, his bathrobe. As he looks at Bobby expectantly, Bobby takes a long look back at his old boss. The front of his dirty tee-shirt is covered in orange Cheez Doodle residue. The yellow powder is also clinging to Henry's unshaved lip and his hair is an unkempt mess. Henry DeMarco looks really, really old.

  Bobby remembers the man he used to be. The dapper neighborhood wiseguy whose presence alone kept the whole block safe. The guy who always picked up the tab for his crew, be it at Burger King or Peter Luger's. The generous boss. The father figure.

  But that guy isn't standing in front of Bobby any more. Not this batshit old psycho covered in Cheez Doodle powder who orders the rape of his ex-wife.

  A flicker of a smile plays under Henry DeMarco's watery eyes. "It done?"

  "Almost."

  Bobby fires the gun into the old man's heart three times. He's dead before gravity catches hold of his lifeless body and drops him towards the floor.

  Bobby catches him and lowers him slowly onto the worn hallway rug. Bobby kisses the old man on the forehead. "I'm sorry, Henry."

  He gets back into his car and takes the long way back into Park Slope. Through some New York Miracle, he gets the same space he just vacated in front of Angela DeMarco's apartment. Two short honks and Angela comes running out the door, lugging her suitcase. "Pop the trunk."

  Bobby shakes his head. "Trunk's full. Just throw it in the back seat." The trunk is filled with Bobby's luggage, ten grand in singles, and a hundred pounds of quarters from the jukeboxes. On top of all that lies the valise given to him from Chaz Stella with a hundred grand in it.

  Angela opens the passenger side door and slides in. "Thanks for leaving me gagged and handcuffed, asshole."

  Bobby shrugs. "Didn't want to hear you bitch about cuddling after sex again. You pack the handcuffs?"

  "Nice. Real nice. Some gentleman you are. Good thing you got a big dick."

  Yeah, Bobby thinks. And if Henry knew that I've been sharing it with you for the last six months, it'd be me lying dead in a hallway somewhere.

  "Is it done?" she asks.

  "Yeah." Bobby puts the car into drive and heads back to the highway. As Bobby drives by the Manhattan skyline, he looks over at the Empire State Building one last time.

  Roses At His Feet

  Jay-Jay rehearsed the lines in his head like an actor waiting to play his part. He'd close his eyes and imagine himself on a stage, audience applauding, spotlight bright in his face, roses tossed at his feet. In his mind, he was the playwright, director and actor of the two-man show that was about to unfold. Only the second actor didn't know he'd been cast yet.

  It was art. He was a performer.

  His venue; a tiny triangular park where Olive St. met Metropolitan, Orient Ave jutting it off at an angle. He waited on the dark side of the green, on Orient, around 3:30 each night and watched the bar crowd make their way home with a discerning eye. He'd watch for men with flowers, specifically.

  Jay-Jay lit himself another Kool and watched the two young girls clinging dizzily to one another. They passed him without a glance, giggling at their own sloppiness as they zig-zagged down the sidewalk. Jay-Jay squeezed his crotch as they went. A tingle ran from the base of his scrotum and up his spine as he stared at their tight little asses shifting under the fabric of their tight little jeans.

  He wasn't no mad dog. He had rules. First off, nobody drunk. Drunks were too unpredictable. Besides, most of them had spent their money on the goddamn booze that had gotten them there.

  And drunks got ideas. Stupid ideas about their chances on the man with the knife.

  Second rule, no women. Women tended to scream. Jay-Jay didn't need no attention.

  It was all an art. It was all an act. Jay-Jay was an artist. He worked his fingers over the top of the chain-link fence, pretending the spaces were the ivory on the grand piano at The Blue Note. He played "Five Spot Blues", humming the notes as he jabbed at the imaginary keys. Shit, he'd been told a ton of times that he played it better than Thelonious Monk himself.

  Crack or no crack, times were hard. Jazz clubs were shutting down left and right. Those few that were left had blacklisted Jay-Jay. Said the drugs were getting in the way. Making him fuck up.

  Making him fuck up? Shit, somebody needed to tell those rich white motherfuckers who owned the clubs about real jazz.

&
nbsp; Charlie Parker.

  Chet Baker.

  Billie Holiday.

  Even Mr. Wonderful World himself Louis Armstrong smoked himself enough weed to choke out Snoop Dogg.

  Drugs were making him fuck up? Fuck, drugs were as much a part of jazz as the goddamn instruments. Maybe more. Jay-Jay was waiting for the day that somebody, anybody could explain Bobby McFerrin to him.

  Jay-Jay started to work his fingers around "Cool Walk" when he saw him heading up Metropolitan. Not too big. Carrying roses. Not the pricey boxed ones, but not the shitty deli roses, neither. He didn't look drunk. Perfect.

  Jay-Jay walked the opposite side, crossed over about twenty feet ahead of the guy. He kept the knife pressed against the leg away from the dude. No need to show his hand early. As he got close, he saw that the guy was Asian, wearing a green corduroy coat. He thought for a second that it was the same Asian guy he'd hit a month or so back. That cat had four hundred bucks on him. Jay-Jay was disappointed when he realized that it wasn't the same guy. Goddamn Asians all looked the same to him, anyway.

  "Them's some nice flowers, my man." Jay-Jay smiled wide and friendly. The curtain was up.

  "Thanks." The guy smiled warily, but kept moving. This was Brooklyn, after all.

  "Psst." The guy turned towards Jay-Jay again. Jay-Jay flashed the blade under the streetlight. The guy tensed, but didn't flake—all good, so far. Jay-Jay motioned towards the flowers with the tip of the blade, liked the dramatic effect the streetlight (spotlight) had as it danced off the edge. "You got love, man. That's a beautiful thing."

  The guy looked from the blade, to Jay-Jay, then back at the blade. Jay-Jay felt for a second that the guy still seemed strangely under-intimidated. He went on with his lines. "So I'm asking you not to risk that. All I want is the money in your wallet. You keep those flowers and you give them to your pretty lady. You hold her in your arms and you forget this happened. You don't, I cut you. I'm not playing."

  The guy nodded, chewed on his gum, calm as a pond at dawn.

  This wasn't right.

  The five or six cats he'd pulled this hustle on shook a little, at least. One big guy started crying as he handed over his wallet. It didn't make Jay-Jay proud or happy to frighten those men, but it made him realize what a powerful tool their love was when turned against them.

  Except with this guy.

  Then he held out the roses to Jay-Jay. "Hold these a sec?" he asked as he reached behind into his rear left pocket.

  Stunned, Jay-Jay took the roses. This guy was too cool. It was starting to freak him out a little.

  He had his arms full of the flowers before it dawned on Jay-Jay that most men tended to carry their wallets in their right back pocket, not the left…

  The flowers exploded silently up and out from Jay-Jay's grasp, red petals pluming into his face. He heard metal hitting concrete and saw his knife lying next to a hydrant. How the hell did that get there? Jay-Jay turned to see the Asian guy moving quickly, a flash of silvery light underneath the streetlamp and Jay-Jay's legs weren't under him anymore. He slumped to the sidewalk and leaned against the hydrant. Sticky warmth rushed down the arm that once held the knife. Jay-Jay went to grab it, but found he couldn't close his hand any more. Rose petals floated down around him, like fragrant crimson raindrops. Jay-Jay pressed his working hand against his side. More warmth ran between his fingers. Had this little chink fucker cut him? He barely even saw him move.

  "It was poor form, Jay-Jay," the Asian man said.

  "How…how you know my name?" Jay-Jay's lips were growing numb. It was getting harder to speak.

  "I know who you are, because you made it my business." The guy crouched down next to Jay-Jay. He wiped his own wicked-looking blade clean on Jay-Jay's pants leg. "One of the men you robbed? His father is an important man whom I work for. Your robbery insulted them. They wanted me to find you, so I did."

  Jay-Jay felt strangely calm despite the alarming rate that the warmth was escaping his body. The coldness in his legs was almost comforting, like a slow dip into the little plastic pool that his uncle would fill up on the hottest summer days.

  Jay-Jay smiled a little at the flicker of memory from his Louisiana childhood.

  He hadn't thought of home in a long, long time.

  He looked into his slasher's eyes and was surprised to find them warm. "It was that Japanese kid I mugged, wasn't it?"

  The Asian guy laughed as he lit two cigarettes with a wooden match struck off the sidewalk. "That's profiling, Jay-Jay. So un-P.C." He stuck one filter between Jay-Jay's lips. "Besides, he was Chinese."

  "Shit. I'm dyin', ain't I?"

  "Yeah. You are. But you shouldn't be feeling any pain. I cut you cleanly."

  "You're a fucking saint."

  "I didn't have to." The guy stood. "It's a shame Jay-Jay. I saw you play at The Standard last spring. You were a great talent."

  "Still am, for the next few minutes." Then he remembered his ruined right arm. "Shit, I'm not even that right now, am I?"

  "Sorry."

  "Tell me one thing…"

  "What?"

  "Did you think I was as good as The Monk?"

  He shrugged. "I dunno. Never saw Monk play. But you can ask him yourself in a couple of minutes." Without a backwards glance, the guy walked back towards the L train.

  Jay-Jay sat alone, his left hand tapping the bass notes of "Reflections" onto the concrete as he watched the rose petals floating by his feet into the gutter on a gentle river of his blood. He found it oddly beautiful as he died with a song in his ears.

  The Long Count

  'Ponk'

  That was the sound in Rusty's head. Just like one of the cartoon sound effects on the Batman show. Unfortunately, it was also the sound of the big guy's pinky ring as it bounced off his upper left canine.

  When the chirping birdies cleared, Rusty managed a response to the somewhat unexpected blow. "Ow."

  The shot to the mouth was only somewhat unexpected since Hermes, the flyweight who had been working the heavy bag under Rusty's tutelage, took the first swing. Hermes was on his back, down for the long count.

  "Aw hell," Rusty said, less in pain for his mouth than at seeing yet another prospect unconscious on the mat. Granted, Hermes was a flyweight and the puncher was clearly a heavyweight, but still. He should have been able to take one goddamn punch. Or had the reflexes to get the hell out of the way. "Look what you did to my boxer. That ain't right."

  "Do I have your attention, Mr. Cobb?" The voice was a syrupy Texas drawl. Rusty leaned around the heavyweight to see its owner.

  Jesus, Rusty thought, I'm being rousted by Hopalong Cassidy. The guy was standing in a Brooklyn gym wearing an embroidered western shirt and a brown ten-gallon hat. "Chaps."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You need chaps to finish that outfit, Pardner."

  The cowboy nodded at the heavyweight, who grabbed Rusty by the front of his sweatshirt and backhanded him across the mouth. Small blessing, but the second shot cleanly knocked out the canine that was cracked by the first punch. At least he'd save on the dentist bill.

  "Nobody likes a smart mouth, Mr. Cobb."

  "Please, we've shared so much already, call me Rusty." He spat out his tooth, which bounced once and landed on Hermes's limp glove.

  "This isn't a Sunday social, Mr. Cobb." The cowboy took his hat off and wiped his sweaty brow.

  It was hot in the gym. Rusty kept it that way on purpose. A page he stole from the old Kronk Gym in Detroit for conditioning fighters. Maybe if he waited long enough, his two visitors would pass out from heat exhaustion. "So I shouldn't bother with the fine china, then. You mind telling me what this is about?"

  "Don't insult me by pretending you don't know why I'm here." Cowboy bit the end off of a cigar the size of a biscuit can. He spit the wet tobacco right on Hermes's forehead. Hermes didn't even stir. One time contender, now human spittoon. The goon whipped out a lighter that looked like it cost more than a Cadillac. Cowboy puffed a few times, rolling t
he cigar for an even burn. "Don't insult me by telling me you don't know who I am."

  Rusty tried. He didn't have to try hard. He was sure that he'd remember such a ridiculous character. Something about the goon itched at the back of his head, but that was it. As far as Cowboy was concerned, nothing. "Sorry, Hoss. Never really listened to The Village People."

  Cowboy waved his hand wearily at Rusty. "Hurt him", he sighed.

  The goon palmed the lighter like a roll of quarters and came forward for round three. Rusty was ready this time. It had been almost three decades since he'd been in a ring, but the moves were still there. Like riding a bicycle. A late middle-aged bicycle in desperate need of oiling, but still able to out-speed a heavyweight.

  Rusty ducked the haymaker, crouching low and bringing his fist up and under the big guy's ribcage. The goon woofed as Rusty drove his fist deep into his sternum. Then Rusty brought his left straight into the guy's balls. What the hell. They weren't in a ring, so Rusty wasn't worried about losing a point. The goon dropped to his knees.

  God bless steel-toed boots, Rusty thought as he punted the goon's chin. The kick lifted him off the floor and on his back, splayed out next to Hermes. Knockout, Rusty thought proudly before he put weight on his kicking foot. Not being in fighting condition, the kick had wrenched his ankle. "Ah, shit," Rusty yelled as he dropped, clutching his foot.

  Either way, he was just about to get up and hobble himself over for some cowboy ass-kicking when he heard the unmistakable click of a gun.

  Jeez. The guy was actually carrying a six-shooter. Cowboy had it pointed directly between Rusty's eyes. "Nice moves for an old man, Mr. Cobb. I'd applaud, but I might accidentally pull the trigger and blow your face off."

  "Please then, hold your applause until intermission."

  "There is no intermission, Mr. Cobb. This is a one-act. At the end, you either return what you stole, or you disappear."

  "Oh, it's like Tony and Tina's Wedding, then."

  Cowboy didn't get that one. "You have three days." The big guy groaned and got up groggily. Cowboy shook his head disgustedly at his thug.